Étiquette : Chérifa Boukacem-Zeghmouri

Catégories
EN

The French HSS Community Speaks Out on Open Science: A Top-Down and Bottom-Up Taxonomy Approach

Authors : CandiCe Fillaud, ChériFa BoukaCem-Zeghmouri, Yutong Fei, Valentine FaVel-kapoian

This paper presents a thematic, taxonomy-based analysis that reveals a turn by French HSS (Humanities and Social Sciences) scholars towards criticism of the French national Open Science policy.

By examining their argumentation, we better understand how far official discourse on OS fails to take into account the specificities of HSS disciplines, methodologies, and research practices. To achieve this, we developed a 5-step research design: (1) compilation of a corpus of peer-reviewed papers critical of the national Open Science policy, (2) extraction of quotations containing arguments justifying the criticism, (3) Top-Down indexing of these arguments; (4) construction of a Bottom-Up taxonomy of researchers’ criticisms of Open Science based on an iterative thematic analysis of their arguments, and (5) cross-referencing the two taxonomies.

Our results show that criticism of Open Science accompanied the publication of the two national plans, in 2018 and 2021. The Bottom-Up taxonomy shows that the largest share of the criticism expressed by researchers focuses on Open Research Data, and that this facet cuts across argument categories to the greatest degree, representing the majority of legal/ethical (91.7%), praxis-based (70.0%), and epistemological (68.2%) arguments.

The paper’s original contribution lies in the dialogue it raises about a broader view of Open Science when it comes to HSS. It also provides unprecedented analysis of the categories of argument employed by French HSS scholars to justify their criticism of national French Open Science policy.

URL : The French HSS Community Speaks Out on Open Science: A Top-Down and Bottom-Up Taxonomy Approach

DOI : https://doi.org/10.3998/jep.7835

Catégories
FR

The Journal of Electronic Publishing, 30 ans dans la vie des communautés académiques

Autrice/Author : Chérifa Boukacem-Zeghmouri

L’anniversaire d’une revue savante est toujours un moment important. Avant tout, pour son comité éditorial, et aussi pour la communauté scientifique et professionnelle qui se réunit autour du titre et qui se nourrit de ses contenus. C’est un point d’étape qui permet de faire un pas de côté afin d’appréhender ce qui a été réalisé, ce qui est en cours de conception et ce qui reste toujours à accomplir.

URL : The Journal of Electronic Publishing, 30 ans dans la vie des communautés académiques

DOI : https://doi.org/10.3998/jep.8311

Catégories
FR

Outreach, ou la construction « légitime » du positionnement des grands groupes de l’édition scientifique dans le champ de la communication des sciences

Autrice/Author : Chérifa Boukacem-Zeghmouri

Le texte vise à rendre compte de la manière dont la restructuration du secteur de la publication autour des modèles ouverts et des plateformes numériques a conduit les grands groupes de l’édition scientifique à envisager le champ de la communication des sciences comme une extension du champ de la communication scientifique pour leurs luttes de domination et de légitimation.

L’exemple des revues The Lancet et Nature, respectivement médicale et généraliste, et leurs stratégies éditoriales sur leurs comptes de réseaux sociaux grand public, montre la variété, la richesse et la complexité des contenus diffusés, au service d’une médiation socio-scientifique, qui fidélise un vivier de lecteurs et d’auteurs, mais qui permet aussi de se démarquer et de se distinguer vis-à-vis de leurs concurrents.

URL : https://lesenjeux.univ-grenoble-alpes.fr/2025/dossier/03-outreach-ou-la-construction-legitime-du-positionnement-des-grands-groupes-de-ledition-scientifique-dans-le-champ-de-la-communication-des-sciences/

Catégories
FR

Légitimations et subversions de l’Open : pour une analyse de l’openwashing dans la publication scientifique

Auteurs/Authors : Guillaume Silhol, Hans Dillaerts, Chérifa Boukacem-Zeghmouri

Ce texte propose un état de l’art inédit sur la notion d’openwashing dans l’espace des publications scientifiques. En s’appuyant sur les phénomènes de washing, il aborde une variété de formes de détournement des principes de l’ouverture scientifique.

À partir d’une analyse critique d’une littérature interdisciplinaire, le concept sténographique élaboré est appliqué aux plateformes numériques pour analyser de la déviance à bas bruit et à faible concernement.

L’article apporte une meilleure compréhension de la genèse de l’openwashing à la fois comme concept critique et vecteur de discours de dénonciation de la déviance et de ses évolutions. Enfin, il permet de forger une définition ancrée dans le champ de la communication scientifique ouverte, autant que de légitimer son usage pour appréhender les mécanismes complexes de ses transformations.

HAL : https://hal.science/hal-05363533v1

Catégories
EN

Geographical and disciplinary coverage of open access journals: OpenAlex, Scopus, and WoS

Authors : Abdelghani Maddi, Marion Maisonobe, Chérifa Boukacem-Zeghmouri

This study aims to compare the geographical and disciplinary coverage of OA journals in three databases: OpenAlex, Scopus and the Web of Science (WoS). We used the Directory of Open Access Scholarly Resources (ROAD), provided by the ISSN International Centre, as a reference to identify OA active journals (as of May 2024). Among the 62,701 active OA journals listed in ROAD, the WoS indexes 6,157 journals, Scopus indexes 7,351, while OpenAlex indexes 34,217.

A striking observation is the presence of 24,976 OA journals exclusively in OpenAlex, whereas only 182 journals are exclusively present in the WoS and 373 in Scopus. The geographical analysis focuses on two levels: continents and countries. As for disciplinary comparison, we use the ten disciplinary levels of the ROAD database. Moreover, our findings reveal a similarity in OA journal coverage between the WoS and Scopus. However, while OpenAlex offers better inclusivity and indexing, it is not without biases.

The WoS and Scopus predictably favor journals from Europe, North America and Oceania. Although OpenAlex presents a much more balanced indexing, certain regions and countries remain relatively underrepresented. Typically, Africa is proportionally as under-represented in OpenAlex as it is in Scopus, and some emerging countries are proportionally less represented in OpenAlex than in the WoS and Scopus.

These results underscore a marked similarity in OA journal indexing between WoS and Scopus, while OpenAlex aligns more closely with the distribution observed in the ROAD database, although it also exhibits some representational biases.

URL : Geographical and disciplinary coverage of open access journals: OpenAlex, Scopus, and WoS

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0320347

 

Catégories
EN

Fast, Furious and Dubious? MDPI and the Depth of Peer Review Reports

Authors : Abdelghani Maddi, Chérifa Boukacem-Zeghmouri

Peer review is a central component of scholarly communication as it brings trust and quality control for scientific knowledge. One of its goals is to improve the quality of manuscripts and prevent the publication of work resulting from dubious or misconduct practices.

In a context marked by a massification of scientific production, the reign of Publish or Perish rule and the acceleration of research, journals are leaving less and less time to reviewers to produce their reports. It is therefore is crucial to study whether these regulations have an impact on the length of reviewer reports.

Here, we address the example of MDPI, a Swiss Open Access publisher, depicted as a Grey Publisher and well known for its short deadlines, by analyzing the depth of its reviewer reports and its counterparts. For this, we used Publons data with 61,197 distinct publications reviewed by 86,628 reviewers.

Our results show that, despite the short deadlines, when they accept to review a manuscript, reviewers assume their responsibility and do their job in the same way regardless of the publisher, and write on average the same number of words.

Our results suggest that, even if MDPI’s editorial practices may be questionable, as long as peer review is assured by researchers themselves, publications are evaluated similarly.

URL : Fast, Furious and Dubious? MDPI and the Depth of Peer Review Reports

DOI : https://doi.org/10.21203/rs.3.rs-3027724/v1

Catégories
EN

The pandemic and changes in early career researchers’ career prospects, research and publishing practices

Authors : Hamid R. Jamali, David Nicholas, David Sims, Anthony Watkinson, Eti Herman, Cherifa Boukacem-Zeghmouri, Blanca Rodrıguez-Bravo, Marzena Świgoń, Abdullah Abrizah, Jie Xu, Carol Tenopir , Suzie Allard

Introduction

As part of the Harbnger-2 project, this study aimed to discover the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on junior researchers’ work-life, career prospects, research and publishing practices and networking.

Methods

An online international survey of 800 early career researchers (ECRs) was conducted in 2022. A questionnaire was developed based on three rounds of interviews and distributed using multiple channels including publishers, social media, and direct email to ECRs.

Results

The impact of the pandemic on career prospects, morale, job security, productivity, ability to network and collaborate, and quality and speed of peer review has on the whole been more negative than positive.

A quarter of ECRs shifted their research focus to pandemic-related topics and half of those who did, benefited largely due to increased productivity and impact. The majority worked remotely/from home and more than two-thirds of those who did so benefitted from it. While virtual or hybrid conferences have been embraced by the majority of ECRs, around a third still preferred face-to-face only conferences.

The use of library online platforms, Sci-Hub, ResearchGate, Google Scholar and smartphone to search and access full-text papers increased. ECRs prioritised journals with fast submission procedures for the publishing of their papers and spent more time on increasing the visibility of their research. Fees were a problem for publishing open access.

Conclusion

Although, generally, the pandemic negatively impacted many aspects of ECRs’ work-life, certain research areas and individuals benefited from being more appreciated and valued, and, in some cases, resulted in increased resources, better productivity and greater impact.

Changes, such as the use of digital technologies and remote working created new opportunities for some ECRs. While continuing work flexibility and hybrid conferences might benefit some ECRs, institutions should also take measures to help those ECRs whose career and productivity have been adversely impacted.

URL : The pandemic and changes in early career researchers’ career prospects, research and publishing practices

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0281058